


love has never been kind to you

by wordsxstars



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas fluff? kind of? idk, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maria Stark's Good Parenting, Mild substance abuse?, Not Canon Compliant, POV Tony Stark, Sort of canon compliant except Steve and Tony are in love, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark grieving, which is basically canon compliant so nvm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsxstars/pseuds/wordsxstars
Summary: On the first December 16th after his parents die, seven months after his eighteenth birthday, Tony Stark wakes up to snow.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 85





	love has never been kind to you

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i've wanted to do a fic that explores tony's grief over losing maria for a while, and so finally here it is. and then it turned into stevetony because... of course it did. 
> 
> quick disclaimer, i haven't experienced a loss like this before, and obviously everyone experiences grief differently so yeah. it does look at some of the more conventionally unhealthy ways that tony deals with grief, but its super brief so shouldn't be too much of a problem. just be careful.

On the first December 16th after his parents die, seven months after his eighteenth birthday, Tony Stark wakes up to snow. 

He knows as soon as he opens his eyes. It’s funny how snow works that way. It’s a silence in the air, like something in the world is holding its breath, afraid that it will all just _disappear_ if time doesn’t stop for a while. 

He spends longer than he cares to admit in bed that morning, staring at the ceiling. 

He doesn’t know what time it is when he becomes aware of a low humming noise, and then he hears JARVIS’s voice. 

_“Good morning sir.”_

“JARVIS?”

 _“Yes boss?”_ His AI’s voice is… soft. It’s more careful, almost concerned. 

“Read me the date.”

_“I’m not sure that’s-”_

“The date JARVIS.”

He knows, he’s known since before he’d opened his eyes, known from the tightness in his chest. 

There’s a beat of silence, and when he speaks again, JARVIS is quiet. 

_“The date is December 16th sir. Shall I tell Mr Stane you won’t be in the office today?_

“That would- yeah. Thank you.”

_“Whatever you need sir. My condolences again.”_

“Thanks J,” Tony mutters, curling back up under the duvet. 

_“You have three missed calls from James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes.”_

“Could you just… tell him I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” 

Everything is aching with something he can’t identify. He doesn’t think he can move, let alone talk to his friend. 

_“Of course sir. Might I suggest you use this time to get some more sleep?”_

“Yeah.” He says quietly, staring out of the window. He doesn’t like the blinds closed anymore, hasn’t for a while. It’s a childish fear, he knows. But he doesn’t care. If she was here, his mother would kiss him on the forehead, would smile that bright smile that always made him happier, would tell him that it’s fine to not like the dark, even at the age of eighteen. 

He remembers when the news had come in, around this time of the morning last year. The week following had been a blur of people apologising for his loss, shaking his hand and telling him that his father _was a great man._ He wasn’t. He wasn’t even a decent person. 

But Maria was. 

Maria, the one who had been the softness to Howard’s harshness, who had stepped between them too many times to count, who had sat with him through the night, taken him to the hospital, covered for him, protected him, loved him. 

And now she’s gone. 

Tony doesn’t get out of bed for the rest of the day. 

-

The next year, Tony doesn’t stay in bed. 

He goes to a party and gets hideously, obscenely drunk, because he’s so fucking scared that the numb feeling will come back. He couldn’t shake it last time, had given into it. It tugs at him even with the blur of alcohol, but he ignores it. 

Instead, he grabs Tiberius Stone by the arm and spends the night with him, and it’s just bruised lips and teeth and a roaring noise in his head, because anything is better than the numbness. 

He wishes he could have told his mother, wishes she could’ve known more about him, wishes he’d had the courage to tell her the truth about himself. 

It’s too late now. 

He doesn’t talk to Ty, but kisses him hard. Eventually, despite everything, the roaring fades to something numb. 

It doesn’t ease for a while. 

-

By the time he becomes Iron Man, the world has forgotten his grief. No one cared enough about Maria to grieve for her apart from Tony, and they no longer mourn Howard either. Instead, they turn towards Tony for the solutions to every problem they might have. 

Nick Fury comes knocking, he nearly dies from palladium poisoning, then December 16th rolls around. He declines Fury, or rather Fury declines him, but he doesn’t really care anymore. 

The Avengers sounds like a death sentence anyway. 

He considers calling Ty again, just for the sake of it, or maybe finding one of the far too many women desperate for a few hours in his bed. 

But then Pepper knocks on the door of his lab, and she’s holding a paper bag filled with jam donuts and a cup of coffee, and she doesn’t say anything. She just sits down, handing him the food and coffee wordlessly, and they sit in a comfortable silence for the rest of the evening. 

“Why?” He asks later, because Pepper is his best friend aside from Rhodey, but she also thinks coffee is the equivalent of drinking weed killer. 

She just smiles, and it’s a sad one, but it’s there. 

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Tony finds himself smiling back a little bit. 

It’s a sad one, but it’s there.

-

On the first December 16th with the Avengers, he takes his car and drives off for the day. It’s after the battle for New York, and if he doesn’t get _out,_ he’s going to go insane. The memories of the endlessness of space coupled with the memories of his mother’s eyes makes him want to break things. Or have a drink. Or do something reckless and stupid like call Ty Stone. 

Steve Rogers asks him if he wants company, and he looks so sincere that Tony feels his heart break a little more in his chest. Steve is so honest it hurts, and he makes him smile, and he makes him laugh, and he makes him feel _alive_ in a way that Tony hasn’t felt in a while. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to call Ty anymore. 

Sometimes when he’s around Steve, he thinks he hears his mother's voice, tinged with sadness, but low and soothing as always. 

_Be happy Tony._

But despite everything, he’s not sure he knows how to do that anymore, not sure he can let himself. 

So he says no to Steve’s offer of company, even though he really wants to take it, and spends the day by an old lake out of town, blinking away tears. 

Eventually, even the thought of Steve’s stupid, startlingly blue eyes can’t push it back, and the numb detachment sweeps in. He wishes he was scared of it, because then maybe he would fight it more. 

Three hours later, a car pulls up by the lake. He doesn’t turn around, but knows who it is once they sit down next to him. 

“Pepper told me what happened.”

Steve’s voice is soft, but it isn’t a voice that’s telling him he’s weak. It’s a voice of someone who cares. 

“Oh.”

Steve gives him a hesitant smile, handing him a cup of coffee. It's not rocket science that Tony likes to drink it, but the fact that Steve noticed and bought him some... some of the weight in his chest eases for a second.

“it’s a good view.” Steve says quietly, nodding towards the lake. 

“She used to take me sometimes if Dad was away working. It’s peaceful.”

“It’s beautiful.”

And there’s nothing more to be said, but the silence is soothing. He feels himself relax, watching the sun make patterns of light across the lake. 

Eventually, the sun dips behind the water, and it’s only once they’re back in the car that Tony realises he feels lighter. 

Steve says goodnight to him once they get back, and apologies for intruding. Tony says he doesn’t mind, because he really doesn’t, and Steve's answering smile makes Tony smile back. 

The nightmares don’t reach him that night. 

-

After that, Steve turns up every year on December 16th, even after the Ultron fiasco. Sometimes, he just comes and drops off coffee, sometimes they drive to the lake, and sometimes they walk around the city until the early hours of the morning. They don’t talk much, but Tony isn’t so scared of the numbness reaching him here. 

When he asks Steve to drive them to where his parents are buried, Steve does it without a second of hesitation. 

He goes into the graveyard alone, ignoring Howard’s headstone and crouching on the damp grass next to his mother's. 

“Hey mom.” He whispers, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I miss you. A lot.”

The soothing silence remains, and the air is clean, refreshing. 

“I know you always told me to be happy,” he continues, fingers brushing the faded name etched into the stone, “and I’m trying. I am, I promise.”

He swallows hard, closing his eyes for a second. It’s quiet here, there’s no roaring noise in his head, but no numbness either. He feels… peaceful, for the first time in a while. 

“I love you.” He says quietly, touch lingering on the headstone. 

He leaves soon after that, because something is aching in his chest, and he’s blinking harder than before. He misses her. He misses her. He misses her. 

It’s not _fair_. 

He sounds like a child, he _feels_ like a child. But really, isn’t that what he is, even though he’s technically an adult now? A child who lost his mother, a child who’s never getting her back. 

Obie had said that when they’d died, had looked at him with empty eyes, hand closing around his arm in the way he’d hated more than anything. 

_They’re not coming back._

A child. He’d been a child, and then she’d died, and he’d grown up so fucking fast and it still hurts the same amount, even so many years later. 

_Be happy Tony._

He doesn’t try and stop the tears this time, and neither of them mention them. He feels like something in his chest is breaking, cracking wide open. There’s no defence to this, nothing he can do to stop it. He doesn’t know why it _hurts_ so much.

When they get back to the tower and get out of the car, he feels a hand rest on his arm. He thinks he flinches, opening his eyes. Steve smiles sadly at him again, pulling his hand away. Tony doesn’t beg him to put it back, doesn’t beg him to stay, doesn’t ask for any of that because he knows it’ll only hurt more in the end. Steve walks inside, and Tony watches him go. 

Then he follows, makes another pot of coffee, and locks himself in his workshop for the rest of the day. 

At some point, the tears leave, and the flash of longing that always accompanies Steve Roger’s touch fades. The numb feeling returns. 

-

_Howard!_

It’s a dream, it’s a nightmare, it’s the only thing he’s been thinking about for the last three days. 

_Tyres on ice, a skidding car, the creak of metal._

_Howard!_

Steve, Bucky, Steve. _Steve._

_Did you know?_

_Yes._

His chest hurts, he hasn’t been in the suit since he came back. 

Helen Cho tells him that he’s lucky to be alive. He doesn’t mention that he's not, not really. His heart is still there, left in the frozen air of Siberia. 

He’d known. Steve had fucking _known_ the whole time what had happened. He’d seen Tony’s grief, the grief that had nearly torn him apart. And he’d lied, he’d kept it from him. 

He’d _lied._

_Then we’ll do that together too._

Lies. All lies. 

He doesn’t give a _shit_ about the accords, couldn't care less about the agreement anymore. Steve had looked him in the face and lied. 

He starts drinking again. A lot. Too much. He doesn't tell Pepper, doesn't tell anyone else. It doesn't matter. 

_Did you know?_

_Yes._

Rhodey comes over, takes one look at him, and Tony knows Steve probably won’t live through their next encounter. Rhodey is angry, he’s so angry. Tony gets a flash of vicious satisfaction at the thought of Steve having this level of rage directed at him, but then remembers how much everything hurts, and how Steve made the numb feeling fade, even for a little while.

Rhodey stays, and Tony is so beyond grateful. Less than twenty four hours later, Pepper is back, and she has donuts, just like that time so long ago. 

_I didn’t want you to be alone._

He smiles, a real one, and hugs her as tight as he can, because he has Pepper, and he has Rhodey, and they have donuts and coffee. They’re alive, he's alive.

For the first time in a while, he thinks that he might be okay. 

Not alone. 

-

Steve comes back almost a year later, and Tony isn’t ready, but he doesn't think he'll ever be ready for Steve Rogers. Seeing him feels like he's been punched in the stomach, but he feels… awake. 

Steve apologises. 

Bucky stays in Wakanda. 

The drinking gets worse for a while, worse than when he'd come back from Siberia. Tony know's Rhodey is scared, he can hear it in his voice every time he talks to him. But then it gets better

It starts becoming a little easier to breathe. 

-

One day, almost a week after Steve comes back, Rhodey is with Tony in the kitchen when Steve walks in from a morning run. Tony looks away from the clothes that cling to his body, very firmly avoiding his eyes. He feels Rhodey tense up next to him 

“Rhodey.” He says quietly, touching his friend on the arm. “Leave it.” 

He ignores Tony completely, giving Steve a humourless smile. “Rogers. We should talk.”

_“Rhodey.”_

“Tony,” Steve says softly, eyes a little sad. “You can let him speak.”

“It won’t take long.” Rhodey says, voice flat. Only Tony catches the way his hands tremble slightly with anger as he slides them into his pockets. 

“Go ahead.” Steve says, eyes flicking to Tony’s for a second. 

Rhodey takes a step closer to him, and Tony sees Steve’s shoulders tense, like he’s bracing for impact. He supposes that he is, in a way. 

“Tony may have let you back in here, but that doesn’t mean I, or anyone else, has forgotten what you did.”

“I-”

“Still my turn. Keep listening.” Rhodey snaps. “You hurt him. You hurt him more than possibly anyone has in his life. He trusted you, and you betrayed that trust. You didn’t see him when he came back from Siberia, but I did, and Pepper did, and neither of us will be forgiving you any time soon. Maybe eventually, he'll tell you about the drinking that almost fucking took him to death's door, and all the other shit that came with it, but you wouldn't deserve it, because you don't deserve that trust again.”

“Rhodey.” He says again, tone low with warning. He doesn’t want to bring it all up with Steve again, but he can’t quite bring himself to feel fully guilty about letting Rhodey lay into him. 

“No, I’m not going to _not_ tell him this.” He turns back to Steve. “So you either do some _serious_ character development, or you can stay the _fuck_ away from him, you clear?”

Tony doesn’t know what to say, isn’t sure how to deal with Rhodey defending him like this. He forces himself to look at Steve, and there’s nothing but devastation on his beautiful face. 

“I know. I know I hurt him. I know.”

“Do you?” Says Rhodey, voice hard. “Because your apology was an absolute pile of _shit_.”

“I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“Well you did. So congratulations on that. Did you expect to just waltz back in and it all just be _okay_?”

Steve doesn’t answer this, only shakes his head. 

There’s so much guilt in his eyes, but Tony thinks he’s the only one who notices. 

In the end, Tony isn’t surprised that Rhodey ends up punching Steve in the face, but when it happens he grabs his friend’s arm, dragging him out of the room. 

As soon as they get out of the kitchen, he rounds on him. 

“What the _hell_ Rhodey?"

Rhodey shakes out his hand, a slightly satisfied look on his face. 

“Sorry.”

“You don’t _sound_ fucking sorry, Jesus _Christ_.” He runs a hand through his hair, trying to calm his heartbeat back to normal.

“He has it coming.”

“He-” Tony takes a deep breath, forcing himself not to admit just how much he wants to go back in and see if Steve is okay. “You can’t punch him. That won’t _help_.”

“But it made me feel a lot better, so there’s that.”

He stares at his friend, shaking his head and biting back a small smile. 

“You punched captain America in the face. Jesus.”

Rhodey shrugs, a grin tugging at his lips. “It was karma. We’re fine now, don’t panic Tones.”

“I’m not _panicking.”_ He shoots back, dropping his voice to a whisper and glancing at the door, so very conscious that Steve can probably hear their whole conversation. 

“Fine. Letting it go as we speak. Promise I won’t hit him again unless he doesn’t stick to his halfway decent apology.”

He rolls his eyes, shoving his friend in the shoulder, and tries not to feel guilty about walking away from Steve. 

-

With Pepper, it’s a little less violent, but a lot more dramatic. She ignores Steve for a week, and then shouts at him for an hour when she accidentally bumps into him in the kitchen, her voice echoing through the tower. 

Even Rhodey winces a bit as he hears it, and Tony pretends to be very busy with a project. 

Steve never fights back, never defends himself, just apologises again and again. The guilt doesn’t leave his eyes. He wonders if it ever will.

When Tony finally plucks up the courage and asks Steve why he’d come back and left Bucky, Steve just shakes his head, giving him such a sad look. He thinks that all of Steve's looks are sad now, though he’ll never say that to anyone else. 

They try. They’re trying. Tony gradually, slowly, opens up his life for Steve again. He puts him in his old room in the tower, avoids him as much as he can. 

It’s fine. They’re fine. 

But yet even now, even a year after seeing that video, he still falls asleep most nights with his mother’s screams echoing in his ears. 

-

Forgiveness comes slowly, but it does come.

It always has with Steve. 

He figured out a long time ago that it’s so much easier to love Steve Rogers than to hate him. 

Steve has hurt him, he's hurt him so much. But they've hurt each other, and Tony is tired of the anger, the resentment. It's corrosive, but he's done with letting it consume him.

And then it’s December 16th, a year after Steve came back, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, Tony feels lighter when he wakes up. He feels happier than he has in a while. But maybe happy is the wrong word. Maybe the right word is peaceful, calm. 

Steve takes drives them down to the lake again, and it’s become an unspoken thing between them now. The gravestones hurt too much, make him too angry because there’s no peace with Howard there too. 

So the lake is where he goes to remember his mother now, and Steve is the only person who’s ever come with him. 

Coming for the first time after everything… it had been terrifying. He hadn't known if he’d wanted him back in his life, back in his heart. But then he’d realised that Steve Rogers had never really left his goddamn heart, and he hated him for it for so long. 

But loving him is easier; it’s so much easier. He knows this now. 

They’ve… they’ve talked a lot over the past year, talked and talked and listened to each other, something that neither of them had been good at before. It makes Tony wonder what it would’ve been like if things had worked out differently

But there’s no point dwelling on the past, not anymore. 

They sit in silence for a while, and Tony marvels at the way the light catches the water. It really is beautiful, beautiful in an untouchable way. 

“Tony?” Steve’s voice is quiet, soft. Tony matches his pitch as he takes a drink of the coffee Steve had bought them both on the way. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you-” he shakes his head. “Why do you not hate me?”

Tony slowly puts down the coffee, staring at the water again and trying to slow down the frantic pace his heart has just set in his chest.

“I never hated you.”

“I-” Steve swallows, and he sees the bob of his throat in his peripheral. “I hurt you. I betrayed you in the worst way.”

“I never hated you.” Tony says again, softer now. There’s an ache in his chest, but it’s bittersweet. “God, I don’t know if I’m even _capable_ of hating you Steve.”

Steve. Saying his name, saying it out here by the still water... It makes his heart stumble in his chest for a second. Steve's next words are so quiet.

“If you did… if you did, I wouldn’t blame you.”

Tony turns to look at him, and there’s so much sadness in Steve's eyes, such an endless, echoing grief. It’s the guilt that takes his breath away. He wonders if it’ll ever leave. Because Tony may have forgiven Steve, forgiven him a long time ago, but he doesn’t know if Steve will ever be able to forgive himself. 

Maybe it’s the stillness of the water, maybe it’s the setting sun. He doesn’t know, but something prompts the next words out of his mouth. 

“I wanted to hate you.” He says quietly. “I tried. I tried for so long to hate you. God knows Pepper certainly wanted me to. But I couldn't. I can’t.”

It's silent for a few seconds, and then Steve speaks again.

“I'm glad.” He says, and it's a breath of air, so quiet that Tony barely catches it. Maybe it’s the cold and the light snow that’s started.

Maybe it’s nothing at all that decides what comes next.

Steve’s eyes are so blue, the sunlight hitting them and turning everything golden. They’re so close that he can see the different colours in his eyes, see the reflection of the light on his hair.

Maybe it’s something. 

Tony leans in and kisses him. Steve tastes like coffee and snow and something sweet and warm and _home._

Maybe it’s everything. 

“I figured out, over the last two years,” Tony whispers against his lips, because he feels brave now, and he feels light and happy. It's cold, but Steve is warm. “That it’s a hell of a lot easier to love you than to hate you.”

The snow is falling heavily now, but he can’t feel the cold. Snowflakes settle on Steve’s face, and he’s so beautiful that it hurts.

Steve’s hand cups his face, thumb brushing over his cheek. His eyes are bright. Tony thinks it could be tears. 

“You love me?”

That's awe in his voice, such a fragile wonder that makes Tony scared to nod, scared to shatter something beyond repair. But he does anyway, because it's true, and there isn't anything he knows with more certainty in his life.

“So much. Too much. It scares me, and I’m scared of getting hurt, but I can’t walk away. I haven’t ever been able to walk away from you.”

“Tony.” Steve says softly, kissing him again. Hearing his name on his lips makes his whole body relax, as if he's been waiting to hear it his whole life. Maybe he has. “I love you.”

He closes his eyes, tipping forward and resting his head against Steve’s chest. He can feel his heartbeat, the rhythm is steady and solid and _safe_. 

A few seconds later, he feels warm hands curving over his face, tilting his chin up and gently forcing their eyes to meet. Steve's cheeks are flushed, eyes so fucking _blue,_ and all Tony wants to do is kiss him until he’s breathless.

“Are you okay?”

Something Rhodey had said once drifts back to him. 

_Love has never been kind to you._

But maybe it can be, maybe it will be now. 

He thinks of his mother, how much love she'd had for him, the love that he still feels now, even when she's gone. He thinks of Rhodey and Pepper, people who have never left his side, not even once. He thinks of Steve, Steve who's hurt him, but also saved him more times than he can count, saved him in so many more ways that one.

He smiles, the first real smile in a while, and kisses Steve again as his answer. 

_Be happy Tony._

_I am mom._ He thinks as he watches light reflect off the lake, warmth expanding through his chest. _I love you._ _I’m going to be okay._

The sun hits the lake, the world turns golden, and something that Tony has been missing for a while finally slides back into place.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed :)  
> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wordsxstars)


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